


Not A Love Story

by Halest0rm3



Category: RWBY
Genre: ... - Freeform, Cant help it blakes a writer, Double Entendre, F/F, F/M, Fluid Sexuality, LOTS of double entendre, M/M, Oh also lots of metaphors and ramblings, Possible smut later, Roommates, aromantic blake, at least she seems to think so, for now, if i feel like it, its how she thinks, writer blake, writers block, yangs straight though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:53:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3982189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halest0rm3/pseuds/Halest0rm3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bestselling Author Blake Belladonna shares a small Chicago studio apartment with her obnoxious promiscious unbearably smug roommate.<br/><i>Love is vastly underrated, an ephemeral illusion for the complacent and stupid. I'd much prefer to be in hate, its not nearly as depressing.</i><br/>Not a love story, blake and yang truly do hate each other.<br/>Not a hate-turn-love story, blake and yang will continue to hate each other(all the way to the metaphorical curtain fall)<br/><i>It was oddly refreshing though, to hate someone so passionately. Much less maintenance than true love and just as invigorating. Not that she would ever admit as much.</i><br/>And yet hate is exactly what both of them needed</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ephemerality

The muffled sounds of the city crept in past the paper thin walls of Blake's cramped one person suite. Chicago was greeting the morning sun with an obnoxious stampede of commuters and residents, crawling and shoving through the metaphorical ant-den, straining to leave a mark on the dirt before their impending mortality wiped the slate clean. Not that they would ever make anything of themselves. Chicago, like any other large hellhole of sin and debauchery, swallowed up the naive promise and talents of youth and matched you up against skyscrapers. Skyscrapers of infinitely more talented coworkers, of mindless drivel to swallow up your days in a haze of office, of filth, of tv and endless melodrama. That's if you were lucky. If you were endlessly lucky to have the privilege of dodging the imploring gaze of another “disabled veteran.” Veteran of a bar maybe, who do they think they're fooling with those signs, with those starving babies on their arms? 

“Nothing but droplets of water in a funnel, and at the bottom lies our first and only friend” She whispers to no-one in particular. There's something about being overly dramatic in the waking hours of the morning. The tangled threads of philosophy and life haven't had a chance to wither away in the sun and all the mysteries of the world are visible to those who know how to look. At least that's the idea, but the ballpoint pen scratches through another rambling metaphor and New York Times bestselling author Blake Belladonna throws her moleskin journal to the side with an only slightly exaggerated sigh of exasperation. New York Times bestseller? Entirely laughable, her first novel was a horribly arranged hodgepog of literary cliches and splatted symbolism for the sake of symbolism. That's what the people wanted though, the pretentious literary buffs behind the scenes and once the reviews started lauding it as a “beautiful exploration of human existentialism behind the guise of our heroine's thrilling coming of age story” every suburban mom and precocious teen within the tri-state area picked a copy up to discuss “the hidden meaning.” Blake let out a wry chuckle from its leash. There was no hidden meaning behind “A Darker Road,” no underlying fossil of truth to pull out piece by piece and examine under a microscope. 

Here's the truth, however unexciting it may be. Her so called “debut masterpiece” was originally a smutty fanfiction written in the midst of college whilst in the throes of a passionate but unrequited love stint for a guy three years older than her. “Fascinatingly complex” my ass. Take out the smut, add words, useless rambles of adjectives, just enough verbosity to make your reader feel smart without pushing them away, and voila! It's almost pathetic honestly.

And it all wouldn't matter if she could just reach the words again. Being a pretentious writer is only stupid once you run out of words to weave, and Blake hadn't written anything of importance in months. “Of importance,” there's that pretentious bullshit again. Of importance in this case means not cringe-worthy enough to immediately strikethrough and erase from memory, in case that wasn't clear. The royalties from her book pulled her through, mostly, as did her part-time job at a hole in the wall grocery. It helped that she stayed away from the nightclubs and overpriced designer stores that gave the city of Chicago the 13th highest cost of living in the world. Writers tend to know useless facts like that. Did you know that fingernails grow four times faster than toenails? Not sure how that would fit into any story but if it ever needed to, well this writer would have that shit down. The poor battered stolen bank of america pen rolled to blissful freedom as Blake finally gave up and swept up crumpled pages and long memorized paperbacks off the table. Time for another endless revolution of lethal radiation. 

Blake opened the fridge and pulled out a half empty carton of milk. Old Blake drank organic skim soy milk with cereal, or from a freshly cleaned glass. New Blake chugged the rest of the carton and dunked it into the trash when she was finished. If she listened carefully she could probably hear the cries of abused dairy cows and their respective neglected migrant workers ringing in her ears. 

The clock flashed 11:36. It was mocking her she thought and Blake silently promised to stick a knife square in the middle of those digital LED's first chance she got. The morbid symbolism behind literally stabbing time made Blake smile, albeit begrudgingly, and her good mood lasted until she turned around to see a half naked bed-raddled mess of a man sheepishly standing outside _her_ room. 

“Uh im really sorry I didn't know Alice had a roommate” Not her usual type. Smaller for one, a cute enough face Blake supposed, but nothing more than ehh in the looks department. Not that much of a surprise she supposed, just more proof that her roommate’s uncontrolled libido outweighed her nonexistant sense of modesty. He shifted slightly to one foot, as if unsure whether his oversized boxers gave him enough protection to stay in Blake's gaze.“She's still asleep and I was just going to see if I could maybe make her breakfast or something, before she woke up” He blushed a little, as if embarrassed by his foray into the dangerously homoerotic area of male sensibility. Yep definitely not her type. Alice though... haven't heard that one before. Personally Blake thought she should just introduce herself as Bitchtits Bimbo. That name would fit her better than whatever alias she gave to her poor hapless prey. 

Blake turned around without answering and poured herself a generous cup of wholesale Ethiopian black coffee. Nothing special really, despite the extravagant promises on the can. Not nearly strong enough, more evidence that her bargain drip coffee machine was made with the sensibility of a novice drinker in mind. Only after one small collected sip did she turn around and fix Mr. Whatever with a cold stare. “Alice is awake”

“Wh-what?”

“Well technically Alice, as you know her, is a fictional alias created to ensure that my dear roommate's foray into progressive feminism doesn't create any unpleasant side effects. But the half naked bimbo in there is probably playing some game on her phone beneath the covers waiting for you to get bored and leave.”

His mouth opened and closed several times, a fish gasping for water, and before he could regain his footing Blake plowed through with the bad news. 

“Furthermore if she was actually asleep, neither Hypnos nor Sombus could wake her till probably about...” Blake checked her watch for dramatacism. “oh i'd say around 6 or 7. And if that wasn't enough incentive to leave with your remaining scraps of dignity and ruminate on your sins then know that if you're not gone within the next ten or so minutes than I won't hesitate to throw coffee at you. It probably won't wipe the stink of her off you but never hurts to try right?” Blake poured the rest of her cup down the drain and haphazardly picked a book off the floor to start reading. “Ninjas of Love.” Old Blake would have hidden this book under her mattress. New Blake flipped right to her favorite section, studiously avoiding the gaze of the poor human deer caught in the headlights. Or buck in this case she supposed. 

_His lithe supple body twisted and navigated the forest of assassins with the grace of a prowling panther, each move subtle, deceptively forceful and with one final thrust of the shaft the last assassin collapsed into a stupor. Sweat dripped from his scarred rippling chest, droplets falling as rain on the grass. His was always the most beautiful dance of death, from the very first day he thrust into my life, ripping away any pretense of normalcy, of tameness. I could never live without him I decided in that moment. I had been marked by his fluids, by his blood, by the clash of his weapon against mine._

The lengths to which Amanda Souel went to shove every inch of homoerotic double entendre she could into her juicy compact novella never failed to amaze Blake. It lent a sexual tone to even the most mundane happenings, say for example the painful slap of wood on wood as the door closed on our never to be seen again male hero. 

_“You came for me” I whispered, voice hoarse from the screaming of the night before, skin still sore from the thick ropes that had brought me to my knees. “You came...”_

_“You came for me before, it seemed only fair I should return the favor” His thick biceps gripped me now, in this ultimate moment of weakness, keeping me from falling down. “My love,” the two words raised a feeling I had never felt before, an emotional hunger threatening to rip me apart if I didn't do something, anything, to satisfy it. “Give it to me”_

_“Give you what?” nothing but a hoarse whisper into his hair, wherein the hardest secrets lay hidden._

_“What I came for” His dagger, his long luxurious dagger slammed through the air ripping open my pants, releasing the Holy Stick of Antiorch I had hidden in my pants, the long hidden weapon that held all our most intense dreams._

“Morning Blakey!!!” She caught the flying book before it could brain her in her oversized head, more's the pity.

“Call me that name again and it'll be a knife instead of a book that I throw”

“Someone's feisty this morning!!” Her obnoxious foghorn of a voice grated on Blake's nerves, as did her ability to look fucking fantastic in everything from leather to cum-stained pajamas. Today it was apparently no pants day, her long brazilian legs scantily covered by the bottom of a ragged disheveled hot-fucking pink hoodie. 

“While its all very well to treat your fuckboys as exceptionally advanced vibrators would you at least clean out the trash when you're done? I don't appreciate being the bouncer for your disembodied dicks.” Blake was starting to really regret dumping the rest of her coffee. 

“You could always play with them if you wanted to darling, whats mine is yours” 

“I'd sooner boil my innards and drink my liquefied organs out of someone else's asshole” Point to her, that retort was more erotic than witty, and Yang stuffed her face with a half eaten cake before continuing. 

“Well its hardly my fault you're so sexually deprived that even your “witty” comebacks have freudian subtones” Yes she did air-quotes. Yes the word annoying does her no justice. “Besides you have no right to complain, you start off with twice as many potential fuckbuddies as me to begin with, if you just knew how to reel them in”

“Technically I'm asexual so you have infinitely as many “fuckbuddies” as me” Air quotes are flying all over the place, levels of snarkery are maxing the charts, babies are crying. Its all a mess frankly. 

She laughs at that, a rich hearty laugh to reel in the hearts of unwitting mortals. “Darling your writing and collection of trashy novels begs to differ. Aromantic maybe, asexual? I'd bet my firstborn against it.”

“What's the black market price for a half-succubus baby again?” Point to me, Blake thought, maybe even two judging from the begrudgingly appraising look from her rival in wit and everything else. Best to quit while she's ahead(and still sane). Blake left the room, slamming the door for good measure.

One 12 month lease, shackling her to that monster for all of the near foreseeable future. Absolutely awful. Perhaps she should have agreed to meet her roommate before signing. Perhaps she should just poison Yang and blame her murder on one of the neighbors. 

It was oddly refreshing though, to hate someone so passionately. Much less maintenance than true love and just as invigorating. Not that she would ever admit as much.


	2. Insouciantism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She laughs at that, "Cupid is no more baby than Atlas on his mountain, and no more innocent than the unholy spawn of Lucifer and Echidna"  
> "How is love so evil?"   
> "Ask Helen then, or Caesar, or Arthur, or Patroclus. Love is but a plague of delusion and for every able heart it lures to drug-addled happiness, there's a dozen more it takes for its own. Cupid is the only god that creates his own sacrifices, and with his power he will see the world burn."  
> "Is there no righteousness to him then?  
> "The righteousness of seeing the most beautiful massacre since the dawn of time perhaps. Even Ares, in his war chariot, could not create such a warm comforting rain of death. Even Hades, sitting atop his dark throne, could hardly delude his victims so."

__

Life went on, despite Blake’s supplications for a merciful bolt of lightning. Now I suppose I should paint you a story of tragic childhoods, and misunderstandings. Something to explain why. The endless why. The single most important question in our mission for understanding, and ultimately, the most useless. 

Why did Blake hate Yang? There were reasons of course, masses and masses of excuses whispered into the night as sacrificial curses. Yang had a certain aura about her, a frantic exuberance to her life, akin to a dying bonfire perhaps. Less than a 100 mph meant a chance of looking back, of crashing, and for Blake who thought every action thrice before moving forward, this impulse was foolish and idiotic. Funny how we traits we envy are often dismissed as wrong. Yang constantly mocked her writing, mocked all fiction actually. She spoke a more practical language and while it was all well and good for Blake to insult her own writing, it’s a very different thing to hear such criticism from the lips of another. Yang had the perfect shade of wit that brought out the worst from Blake, explosive fire to repressed dynamite. These reasons and endless, endless more. But that’s not the right answer is it?

Why did Blake hate Yang? Same reason that any one of us fall in love really. She just happened to have an emptiness in her soul that needed feeling and this fiery rush of hatred is certainly cozier than uncertain stuttering butterflies. There’s also that one little matter that our dear protagonist had not really truly loved anyone in quite some time, if ever.  
*****  
_Yang_

Blakey’s the mess I never knew I needed, a white hot coal in a forest of dead corpses, and there’s nothing quite as satisfying as seeing her scowl. She hunches over her laptop, typing in intervals of rapid fury, pounding the keys like a desperate 12 year old playing whack-a-mole. Computer, moleskin, notebook, computer, moleskin, notebook, coffee, vodka, pen, pencil, fucking goose quill, she switches to and fro without reserve or hesitation. If her writing tools were lovers she’d have broken every heart east of the Mississippi.

“You’re overthinking it darling, writings easy its just write down words on paper” I have half my butt on her chair and my body angled impossibly so that I can simultaneously watch the tv and rest my boots on the counter. Nobody ever said being a professional slob was easy. I also happen to be absentmindedly twirling a worn butterfly knife, more out of habit than for any real purpose.

“Just words on paper, is that so?” She doesn’t get mad like others, my Blakey. Her rage is a whisper, rather than a shout and all the more deadly for it. By the time her victims hear the hate lashing out from behind her tongue it’s far too late to beg for mercy. I think it’s absolutely beautiful. 

“Yep, so easy even monkeys can do it” Blake stays silent, no doubt frantically trying to blot out everything except the stale half-assed plot on her moleskin journal. Not that I've ever read it, simply an educated guess based on empirical evidence. 

Minutes pass away in mutual silence, the click of keys alternated by the schick of blade on blade, all on a backdrop of horrible Brazilian telenovelas. I know how much these telenovelas bugged Blake, if not because of the criminally exaggerated facial expressions and sloppy makeout sessions, then because one certain uneducated materialistic bimbo(me!!) just happened to know a whole language of words that Mrs. Fancypants Writer didn’t. Of course putting on headphones would solve the problem, but it would also be admitting defeat. Defeat to this game of endless invisible rules and checks wherein any show of weakness led to a fate worse than death. And so Blake suffered the portugese cursing, shouting, and impossibly frequent marriage proposals in stride.

“You know what you need to do if you really want to get over your writer’s block don’t you? I don’t look over at Blake nor does Blake glance up from her computer. On screen a voluptuous redhead lifts her shirt over her head and tosses it to the side. 

“Kill the main character, tragic accident mourning, etc, etc,” Pause for dramatic effect before continuing. “And then make everyone fuck each other, you won’t believe how many words you can write about people fucking each other”

“Well why kill the main character then if all you’re going to do is create a massive literary sex orgy. Blake leans back, still without looking. 

“A sex scene would hardly be very interesting if you already knew the main character was going to win would it?”

“So sex is a competition now?”

“Everything’s a competition Blakey” The knife goes over by about half a foot and buries itself blade deep in the shitty drywall behind the tv.. It’ll stay there for all of four months, neither person wishing to be the one deigning to take it out. In that respect my words certainly proved through. 

“Warned you about what would happen next time you called me by that name” 

*****  
_Blake_

Intrusions, both to and from the outside world were rare for me. Chicago, for all its architectural beauty, for all the glory of bloated skylines and pristine shorelines and filthy rich extravagance, was not really the best place for a struggling artist to find their muse. It was too neat and orderly, more suited for the budding entrepreneur than the budding writer. New York would have been better, the true picture of a filthy urban sprawl. Venice perhaps, rushing water as background to the words rushing from the pen, souls of a thousand years of history just waiting for their story to be told. Even modern-day Paris, the unfortunate mesh of moral ambiguity and exuberant romanticism, with the worst traits of both, would have welcomed a silent-tongued writer far more readily than the throng of unenlightened tourists it stole money from with silver coated lips. To be surrounded by a chaos on the same wavelength of the chaos in your soul, the hopeless dream of every urban writer and unfortunately Chicago was never this type of city. As such I wrote in the privacy of my apartment and went outside for little else. 

As for my old friends from back home, they still sparred words every full moon, they still drew possibilities of a transcontinental trip to “relive the old days.” Nothing more than words. Everybody was at the stage where their life was a montage of unfolding possibilities, infinite in its capacity to enthrall, and who could afford to look back in this culture of go go go? There would be time for reunions later, always later. 

An intrusion broke through the bubble today though, in the form of a ringing phone. I sighed and reached for it. I knew what name would appear on the screen before looking, she called every sunday morning like clockwork. 

“Hey mom” 

If the timing of the call was like clockwork, then the contents of the call was a well-oiled machine, an endless procession of monosyllabic agreements and cold reassurances that yes, everything was completely fine. Very little was said with even fewer words, at least on this side of the conversation and inevitably the machine rolled through the motions of a heartfelt I miss you. Now, soon, she would ask if I would suffer her presence, citing a business meeting or some other convenient excuse to tell her that she would be in Chicago for the week, or the day. And if the machine stuck to its path I would politely refuse, citing an inordinate amount of work to finish at my job. The temporary intrusion into the bubble would recede and heal.

“Your father and I are going to Evanston for one of his clients, and we'll be there till Wednesday at the earliest. If you wanted to we could pop by for a spell and finally have a chance to see your apartment and have a chat face to face.” And there is my cue.

“Sorry mom, Im really just swamped with work from my job it would be near impossible to get away this week. My manager hinted that he might promote me soon so I don't want to do anything to jeopardize that”

The system worked, efficient, painless. It's not that I didn't love my mother, quite the opposite actually, but I needed this life for myself, I needed this bubble. There would be later, later for heartfelt reunions, for warm homemade meals, for hugs and kisses. Or there would have been later at least, if _somebody_ hadn't taken it upon herself to jam the cogs in this machine. 

Perhaps it's because I never thought that Yang would dare go that far, but my reflexes, honed by weeks of constant warfare, failed me at the most critical time. Yang grabbed my phone and was halfway across the room, jabbering all the while, before the magnitude of what had happened hit me. 

“Hi Mrs. Belladonna, this is Blake's roommate Yang here!... Yes you're daughter is absolutely wonderful, an absolute pleasure to live with” 

Even then I might have done something. Tackled her, brought her to the ground. Something.

“Blakey overworks herself all the time, its not healthy for a young girl like her” She pauses to wink at me, an infuriatingly sly smirk on her face. “No listen I'm sure I can convince her to take a day off, how about you stop by on Friday for lunch,... ok me and Blakey will see you then bye!!!”

Now, and only now do my limbs respond, fingers itching to clench into fists, one step after another till I'm close enough to reach out and rip her face off, bite her perfectly shaped lips off with every inch of boiling hot fury running through my veins. The phone falls from her grip onto the hard wood floor below but I have eyes only for her. She slants this hot little look at me, this sly awful smirk, and flutters her eyes in butterfly fashion, her violet tinged eyes wide as saucers. 

“What happens now Blake?” She leans in close, fangs digging into her plush lower lip, closer, clos-

I slap her. She reels back in shock, slamming against the cheap drywall.

I turn away and march out the front door, the thoughts in my head screaming at me, a discordant chaos in a maelstrom of fury. One of my hands is warm, abnormally warm, and a very vocal part of me wants to march back in and shut her up with my lips. Would she still look as unfairly tantalizing with my marks on her neck and her plush lips bloody from my teeth? 

The answer is yes. She would be ravishing. I step into the midday sun and lose myself in the heart of the city, away from myself, away from her.


	3. Obloquyism

Friday crept closer and the rules of engagement had changed irreversibly. 

The war of wit and snark became one of veiled silence, of poisonous glares. 

Attrition became the practice on both sides, black cavalry scouts replacing the grenadiers and infantrymen and elaborate siege machines. 

Phones would be mysteriously unplugged in the morning. Low battery warnings in place of enemy flags. 

Yang came back one day to her pillows slashed into fillets, synthetic down feathers proving no less floaty than the genuine article. Slitting the throats of innocent civilians is a time-honored war tradition of course, one that requires retribution. Yang hooked up all four of Blake’s pencil sharpeners and shaved each of her writing pencils down to a stub. They were all sharp though, all 57 of them. Adding insult to injury is a subtle art, one that Yang reveled in. 

Isolationism dominated appearances, even as attacks grew more and more frequent. Blake’s boss pulled her away from the shelves to discreetly hand her a very… flamboyantly decorated mail package from Dino Dildos For Days. Blake left the now moist 10 inch tentacled monstrosity on Yang’s bed for her newest boy-toy to see. He left almost immediately, a neutered puppy expression of emasculation on his face as he rushed out the door. 

Poor thing. Societal expectations of dick superiority are a bitch. 

Blake took up cooking as a weapon of mass destruction. She was selfless enough to always give the first plate to Yang after a long day at work. Good nutrition is key to a healthy life after all. Yang finished each and every plate down to the last lick, not even pausing at a particularly foul plate of plate of liver and steak strawberry crepe.

The war progressed with no clear winner in sight, though certainly not for lack of trying. 

Meanwhile Blake continued to write, or try to. The calls from her agent became increasingly tense. Bestselling authors don’t just stop writing after all, send me what you have the first chapter, send me an outline, something anything. Blake did her best to stave off each attempt, promising more and more, drabbles, snippets from years ago. She just had to get her inspiration back that was all. After that she could write again, write for days and days without respite, and paint the delicious storylines on paper for the world to envy. Writing is first and foremost supposed to make the reader envious. That is the final purpose. If the reader wouldn't hop into the story without a second thought then the writer has irrevocably failed. 

And so there she was today, revising as a way of avoiding creation. Perhaps this word would suit better, or this one. Perhaps the oxford comma is a scapegoat fallen from grace and deserved to be summarily executed. Semicolons are the new comma and all the more sluttily promiscuous for that fact. 

The writing count ebbed and receded endlessly. An influx of virgin sacrifices would be immediately set to the gallows, the backspace key gutting them all out in a fell swoop. Entire sentences massacred to dust and ash, for the unforgivable offense of not being born to the right context. In a sense they were bastard children, cum from the wrong parents and thus ultimately worthless. Names quickly expunged from the history books, the cycle would begin anew, ever anew. 

The door announced her arrival with far more enthusiasm than was warranted. Subtle was not a word that described Yang Xiao Long, nor indeed even one that would suffer her presence. Upon the first glimpse of the little vixen, subtle and his synonyms were long gone, to the more hospitable habitats of space, or perhaps dust-swept planes. 

"Sup loser" Not a particularly inventive insult, but a classic nonetheless. Blake flashed her a glare before fixing her eyes back on the screen. 

"Im bringing someone tonight" She said it half-heartedly as if it wasn't even worth mentioning. Blake started at this. The news was hardly a surprise. Yang was nothing if not a faithful disciple of blasphemy and sin. What was more surprising though was that she would say it now instead of simply barging in, hands coiled around her latest prey. 

"Wow what a surprise" Sarcasm coated every word. Blake would have thought of a wittier comeback but Yang had replaced all the coffee in the apartment with decaf. It had not been a good day to say the least. 

"I mean, to date not just to fuck. I sorta like him" 

"Poor chap, doesn't know what he's getting into. Hey once you finish up the ritual can I keep his skull? I need a new bedpiece" She stayed silent for a long time after that, long enough that Blake's eyelids had begun to droop yet again. Fucking decaf. Who the hell invented a coffee that doesn't even work like coffee's supposed to. Whoever it is they deserve a knife in the chest and a noose around their neck. 

"Fuck you Blake" She stormed to her room managing to yank the laptop charger out of the wall in the process. Blake sighed and knocked over her mug getting up, shattering it to pieces on the ground. The growing puddle of black mocked her. 

*******

_"Between heartbeats we are dead and rotting" He trailed the knife along his veins, drawing every vein and line with the precision of practice._

_"That's really morbid" The boy felt a small twinge of deja vu. Hadn't he said that once before, to another man, older than him, another man with another knife?_

_"Au contraire, mon petite frere. For me it's a sign of hope. Even half dead, we can still paint chaos with one hand and fix our mess with the other" He spoke with a deadly certainty, a knowledge born of suffering and Luke fell ever more in love with this poor wretched excuse of an angel. "Hold out your hand Luke, let me show you"_

_Once he might have hesitated. Once he had known nothing of the peril of hazel eyed wonders and the contagious miasma of sadness. His rough scarred fingers ever so gently grasped each digit, caressing it as if each was precious gold rather than flesh and blood. His hand underneath Luke's palm but Luke pulled away before the knife could come close to his skin._

_"Don't worry, I won't cut you. One should never cut another" The corollary of that sentence remained unspoken. Even so Luke reached his hand out yet again; yet again it was clasped by the boy's larger hand. The cold steel came to a rest, and ever slowly, ever imperceptibly it drew each line of the palm, every wrinkle. It was not so frightening really, not with a guide. It was even somewhat comforting, to know that this object of violence could be ever soft and sensual with the right master._

_"One day" His voice was nothing more than a whisper and Luke strained to hear the words . "One day I'll show you the world, your wonderful Paris, your marvelous Prague, just so you can see how awful it all is, how tragically foul they all are. Then I'll take you away from it all, a small little cottage at the edge of the map, far from cities and roads and rotten people. We could hide from the world, together, for years and years"_

_Luke closed his hand around the blade, wincing as the metal sank just a little deeper. "I think I'd like that" He whispered back, the rush of adrenaline immortalizing every crease and curve of his wonderful beautiful face. "And we could live happily ever after right?"_

_"For you mon cheri? Anything, anything at all"_

*****

No no no, Luke wasn't the right name at all. Curse you Lucas for ruining a perfectly good scene with flashbacks of stormtroopers. How was Blake supposed to find good meaningful names for her young protagonist if every movie director with half-assed blockbusters had used up the entire store of believable alias's. Jackson? Riordan had taken care of that. Connor? Cue the inevitable remake of apocalyptic fuckfest, also known as terminator. Harry? A prince and a wizard, both with their share of rabid followers. 

Max perhaps? Terribly drole, but at least it wouldn't make Blake want to throw herself outside of a window every time she had to type it. One control-F later and the blasphemy was held at bay.

The newly christened Max Steeple was a summarily unfortunate fool. Naive, provincial, the bread and butter of coming of age sagas. He would never come of age though; Blake had known that from the first metaphorical twirl of her pen. Cut in the prime of his youth, the thawing effect he had affected on the heart of our second protagonist would be cruelly shut down. Half frozen, the heart would shatter irredeemably leaving its owner a heaping mess of regret and near homicidal anger. He would curse god, curse the fates, curse his own wretched existence. For all that God is supposed to be a benevolent savior, it's easy, oh so easy to make people curse his name. All it takes is a little nudge, a pinch of angst and loss, a semblance of unfairness. If Blake was anything resembling religious that would probably be a depressing thought. As it was it was nothing if not exhilarating, this feeling of near omnipotence. She, and only she, was the puppet master of this world, and unlike God she had no pretense of kindly benevolence clothing her cruel interior. Lucifer would be a kinder leader than her, Blake Belladonna, ruiner of hearts and ravager of virtue. None would survive her story unscathed, none would be left out from the subtle orgy of existential doom. It was her and only her that would lead them, deliver them to a supposed salvation, only to take it away and break their souls. Such was her duty as a god, as a silent watcher, as the keeper of the fa-

"What's with that smirk? You look possessed" Cruel reality intervened, in the guise of one buxom blonde. Funny how that seemed to happen more and more with every passing day. Desert turned to shitty carpet, a waning sunset to a wallpapered prison of slightly above revolting aesthetic. 

"Just thinking of how many ways I could kill you in your sleep" A most intriguing line of enquiry, one that Blake had placed no small amount of effort into lately. Knife to the neck would be the most "conventional" but really the possibilities were endless. The currently established leader was using a basketball pump to inject a small bubble of air into her bloodstream and giving her a stroke. Perhaps not particularly painful, but beautifully unconventional. 

"Thinking of me?? How touching" Her mockery of affectation notwithstanding, she did look more like her normal self than she had earlier. Earlier she had been too demure, almost like a normal person instead of a demoness. 

She pulled out a handle of Svedka and chugged a modest swig. Apparently today was get hammered day, one of her signature holidays. 

"Could you buy something besides shitty vodka? Svedka is the rat-swill that broke college kids smuggle into class"

"Buttercup listen up," She wedged her ass into the same chair Blake was using, ignoring the other perfectly acceptable chair not less than two feet away. "Drinking shitty stuff is the only way to truly enjoy the beauty that is alcohol. Drinking Svedka is like racing down a highway on a Harley with half a handlebar broken off and the cops right behind you. Yea it sucks and you'll regret it tomorrow but it's the only way to know you're living" 

"Sounds poetic" 

"Oh you have no idea" The wild glint in her eyes was back, the tell-tale sign of a fey, mayhaps a wayward succubus or will-o-wisp 

"I'm going to my room" Blake nearly tripped standing up but passed it off by leaning down to scoop her things. She could feel Yang's coal hot gaze burning holes into the back of her head all the way to her room. 

******

The moon was well into her nightly stroll when a sharp knock woke Blake up from her slumber. 3:20 in the morning. 3 fucking 20 in the morning and no prizes for guessing who was on the other side of the door. The knocking grew ever more insistent even as Blake stubbornly kept her eyes closed and her blanket wrapped tightly around her. Only when Yang was all but humping the wood did Blake finally give up and stumble to her feet. 

"Yang Xiao fucking Long its 3:20 in the morning what the hell do you w-" Blake swung the door open on a half-dressed Yang; it wasn’t even the more important half either. She wore knee high stockings and an elaborately engraved ribbon choker but no pants and no shirt either. Choices had been made, the like of which kept Christian conservatives up at night.

"Morning Blake!" She beamed with all the gaiety of a hyperactive 12 year old. 

"How drunk are you?" Blake was too startled to even be pissed, though of course that time would come, right after her roommate decided to explain what the hell she was doing at 3:20 in morning.

"Fucking hammered" She said with an lucidity that belied her words. A faint yelp came from her locked room, along with the sound of something falling and Blake immediately stopped short. 

"What was that noise?"

"Oh probably just Alex"

"Alex?" Blake sputtered and when Yang only nodded in assent she continued. "Who is Alex?" 

"He's the date I was telling you about." Yang was pulling on a pair of leather pants with an ease that once again contradicted her apparent state. "He said you sounded like a fucking loser when I told him about you so I handcuffed him to the bed" She scavenged underneath the couch cushions for a shirt and pulled out a frilly, if somewhat pasta stained, tank top. Blake would have been more disgusted if her words hadn't stopped her short yet again. 

"Wha-?" For once Blake was speechless. Or rather, full to the brim of questions, each more preposterous than the last. "You left him handcuffed???? What if he calls the cops?"

"Oh don't worry I gagged him and took his cellphone" She twirled an expensive looking smartphone around before stuffing it into her back pocket. 

"Okay that's fucking illegal, again why??" Yang shrugged noncommitally.

"He called you a loser and he insulted your writing"

"You call me a loser ALL THE TIME" Blake rubbed her temples vigorously. It was too early for this shit. "Also what writing?? You don't have any of my writing, do you?" 

"Oh we were reading your smut fic to get in the mood, you know the one with the cucumber farm and the ninjas" Oh god, this just kept getting better and better. Seriously why haven't I kicked her out yet, thought Blake. Not that she wanted Yang to read ANY of her writing but that piece in particular is a full-blown bastion of boners(with more than its fair share of increasingly illicit alliterations). 

"Anyway yea so he'll stay in there until we get back, now come on get dressed we don't have all night" Blake blinked in rapid succession, the meaning behind her words finally settling in. Her gaze darted to the single window, showing a dark, cold, definitely cold, empty street. No, no, no there was NO way that Yang was going to drag her out into the street in the middle of the night into the Chicago cold, while a guy was basically held hostage in her room. Nope. This was something that would never happen. Blake was going to march back into her room, get back under her covers, and sleep to a reasonable time, and in the morning all her problems would be gone. Naked hostage, gone. Any recollection of this night, gone. And above all, Yang gone. Good night batshit crazy roommate and good riddance.

*****

"I cannot BELIEVE you dragged me out here" This wasn't happening. It had to be a nightmare. Yang was all but dragging her toward the infernal monstrosity that she called her motorcycle. More like a half tank bastard child with decades of irresponsible gene therapy. It was cold, Chicago cold which was worse than basically any other cold in the continental U.S. Canada winters might be worse but at least they have the hybrid seal-moose-bear genes to give them an extra layer of protection. Chicago cold was dry, and snappy, and windy, and it bites, and did she mention windy? It didn't help that she had only had time to put on two coats before being pushed out the door. 

"Come on don't be such a Blake" Yang finally let go of her arm and casually hopped astride. 

"Did you just use my name as an insult? You did not just use my name as an insult." God she was just so infuriating, what was with her?? All this week she had barely given Blake the time of day and now she wanted to go on a midnight ride through the city. Bipolar much? And Blake wouldn't put it past Yang to make this some sort of elaborate prank, as retaliation for the dildo which made the idea of getting on the motorcycle even worse. 

"Come oooooooon Cupcake, It's just a ride. I'm not going to dump you into the river or anything" Her outstretched hand felt warm as it grasped onto Blake's, which felt cold and clammy by comparison. "Unless you're scared of a tiny little motorcycle that is" 

Of course she would. Of course she would pull that kind of stunt. "The guys you ride might be tiny, that monstrousity sure as hell isn't" I swung behind her, slightly less gracefully. Her blond locks flew into my face with every gust and I resisted the urge to spit right into the middle of the yellow mass. 

"You know for someone who calls herself asexual you hold a strange fascination with dicks" She handed Blake the helmet which Blake promptly handed back. Yang shrugged and roared the motorcycle to life. 

"What's not to like about dicks?" Blake retorted. "They make men insecure and stupid woman drool. It's a misanthropist's panacea"

“You’re all kinds of messed up ya know?” They were tearing through the streets, which if not empty were at least far removed from their usual bloated overflow of traffic. Yang drove like a girl seeking her own death, a reckless abandonment in every movement of the wheels. Blake on the other hand, interlocked her fingers around Yang’s waist to desperately avoid being blown away. She had slight motion sickness, a fact that was only exuberated with every bump and shake of the vehicle.

“Right back at ya” The roar of the engine, the howl of the wind, sharp vibrations of her breath beating against the other, all the sights and sounds collaborating in a facsimile of infiniteness, endlessly captivating in its otherworldliness. This was the stuff of novels, of legends. This was the spark of fire that could set her story ablaze. This was the other coin of life, the endless rushing miracle that drugs could only mimic. And Blake had her worst enemy to thank for it. 

Irony’s a bitch sometimes.


	4. Ceraunophilism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory rooftop scene and that will be all I say

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You demur. She insists. You demur again. She hits you square in the face with a plush stegosaurus dick, and tells you that she’ll burn your violin if you don’t sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.
> 
> You know what this is about, of course. She thinks she can distract you from your misery by making you miserable about something else. Black flirting really is her response to any given situation, and it is eminently disgusting how easily you fold. You also really kind of hate her hero-flushcrush on Nicolas Cage -- platonically, of course -- and she knows and you know she knows and she knows you know she knows.  
>  _-Rise and Shine- Roachpatrol, one of my favorite ao3 fics of ever_

The motorcycle skidded to a halt at some two-bit parking lot between Racine and Halsted, not quite at the border of the dangerous area of Chicago, but close enough that the flickering streetlamps didn't inspire confidence. Nevertheless bad decisions were waiting to be made, and the maladjusted duo were the perfect candidates to make them. In another timeline no doubt, the two might have been sharply reminded of Chicago's criminal past, the taint of organized crime still rank and alive over the febreeze of money and urbanization. In this timeline however the criminal scum found themselves elsewhere, stirring up all sorts of delicious trouble to shake up the delirium of chronic capitalism. Perhaps Lady Fortuna steered them away, finding a soft spot in her heart for our betroubled companions. Perhaps the leather jacket and toned muscles of the blonde steered away an unfortunate encounter. Whatever the case, the night brazed openly her legs, showing off even the most erotic possibilities for those who happened to be brave enough to enter her skirts.

"You can let go of me now you know" Yang joked even as Blake looked ready to collapse on the spot. Mild motion sickness wasn't exactly mild behind the wheel of a thrill-seeking junkie driver. 

"F-fuck you" Blake stammered, nevertheless stumbling awkwardly off the motorcycle, a queasy green pallor still visible on her face. "Where are we anyway?"

"Glad you asked Mrs. Belladonna" A small tilt on the end of her last name flirted with mockery and if Blake wasn't currently occupied trying to keep her guts intact she would have no doubt found some way to repay the dig. "This is a building, some three stories high built circa oh I don't know probably late 80s, bunch of wannabe architects moving away from victorian and going brutalist on everyone's ass"

"And there's the architecture lesson I never needed nor wanted, do you ever answer a question straight?"

"As opposed to what? Grossly homosexual?" Blake shook her head sadly, her point proven. She followed the blonde all the way around the building to a small set of block stairs leading up around the outside of the walls. Graffiti lined the path up, or rather the artless cousin of graffiti who specialized in tawdry jokes and keyed in signatures. Discarded cigarette butts fell victim to the incessant march of Yang's boots. A thin veneer of dust belied the apparent popularity of the path. 

"UIC's a shitty school from what I hear, no money, no teachers, the usual round of budget cuts and union busts, our dear republican leaders jacking off to the millions of dollars they ripped off the faculty. Also the campus is hideous. Whoever they hired to design this wretched excuse for a school wasn’t given enough legos as a child" Yang took the stairs two at a time even as she rapid-fired through her tour guide act a million words a minute. How she got to be so fit with her steady lifestyle of lounging around and stuffing her face was an eternal mystery to Blake. "This building in particular was designed by someone with a raging stairs fetish. If you go inside, you'll see about twenty million more stairs than are even humanly possible in a building this size. Half of them don't even lead anywhere. They literally just go up into the wall, a dysfunctional Hogwarts basically. These stairs though, just happen to lead to one of the best views of the cities you'll ever have the massive infortune to behold"

Right as her spiel ended Blake spotted the last step up ahead opening to a starless sky, courtesy of decades of rampant pollution. Yang turned and gave an extravagant flourish of admission. "After you madam" 

Blake stepped out onto the roof, a vast expanse of tile and rock stretching out in an urban garden of dreary gray and black. It was quite amazing, the view that is. Not postcard picturesque per se. Wasn’t nearly showoff enough for bragging to friends back home. The lakeside by the planetarium was what the tourists wanted; postcard material, with each of the 20 dickiest skyscrapers lined up neatly next to each other in a rather less stunning imitation of the New York skyline. No, this view was more intimate, smaller buildings taking the place of the sears and trump behemoths. A vast tapestry of disgusting urbanism, growing fast and gross as a pimple on the skin of once healthy land, and all Blake could fix on was the endless foray of car lights lining up side by side. A city was rather like a lonely cis-male, Blake decided. The picture that everyone knew, the trump and sears and tribune and hancock buildings, those were dick picks. Look at me, I have the biggest tallest buildings. Pay attention to me I have towers that could rock your world. The view right now however, from the top of this roof, was more like a candid post-coitus pic. It showed the moles, the birthmarks, the awkward tufts of hair that colonized anywhere and everywhere within reach. And much like candid nude pics, it was both far more satisfying and far more depressing.   
In the distance Blake could just make out their apartment building. To the right, the blue of the lake extended far into the horizon. Somewhere past the blue lay Michigan, Wisconsin, even Canada if one knew where to sail. The jealous runts of the northeast those two, Detroit all but bankrupt and Milwaukee a pitiful excuse of urban sprawl. Canada was okay though. Somehow they had managed to fix the raging STD’s that American society tried hopelessly to shake off. If anything their form of democratic socialism was even more enviable than England or Germany, what with Greece and Spain sucking the tits off every other EU country. 

"Isn't it absolutely gross?" 

"Awful" Blake murmured absentmindedly. Time passed in a laggard imitation of a trickle, one that even the harsh cold seemed unable to hurry. A minute, two came and went into the abyss of immortality while nary a word spilled into the open air. Blake finally turned and stared at her companion, somewhat surprised that she had been able to rein in her tongue for this long. Much to her astoundment she saw that Yang wasn't even looking out at the city. She lay on her back, eyes fixed on the nonexistent stars, a thin ghost of a smile plastered across her features. 

"Alright spill Xiao Long. What's wrong? You never stay quiet for longer than it takes to chug a beer"

"Oh so you're the only one who's allowed to be broody and mysterious is that how it is?" 

"Yes actually, I've put a lot of effort into hating you you know, least you can do is keep being loud and insufferable" Yang laughed a little at that, gaze finally turning sideways to meet Blake's. A set of lilac eyes met Blake's amber ones. An overly symbolic stalker might have noticed sparks fly between their gaze. Sharp dangerous sparks, but sparks nonetheless. 

"Alright Cupcake write me like one of your French girls” A wink went alongside a sultry gaze. Frankly Blake had no idea what her game was. Yang hated her, that was the clearly established rule after weeks of conflict. But driving her here to her secret sanctuary or whatever. Showing her this roof and acting completely different to the obnoxious brash little brat she usually was… Blake honestly had no idea what to think about that. Titanic references aside, something was up, and if Blake didn’t figure it out then she would lose this war. 

“Huh” 

“You know, imagine I’m one of your characters or whatever, what’s my next move? What comes next?” 

“Assuming I would write a character as egotistical and materialistic as you?” 

“Of course” That was actually an interesting question. What would a Yang McBimbo character do next? What would be her motivation, her end goal? In essence it wasn’t much different from where Blake’s thoughts had been heading. What drove her to do the things she did?

“To know that I would first have to know why you brought me up here” Blake spoke cautiously, thoughts flitting here and there as thoughts and fancies carried around different trails of inquiries. “This could be the next offensive in our little battle, confuse me with a show of good faith before striking me and finishing me off. It would certainly fit in the vein of everything you’ve done so far”

“Interesting” She replied, face closed even as Blake searched frantically for any response. 

“Or you could actually be madly in love with me. Love and hate separated thin line etc etc. Maybe you’re so dysfunctional that this repartee is your form of mating call. Frankly I wouldn’t be surprised. You’re nothing if not clueless about the basic laws of society” Yang let loose another small bark of amusement. In truth Blake had simply let loose this stray thought to mess with her. It wasn’t really a serious consideration. She was dysfunctional in a different sort of way, and Blake was almost certain of the legitimacy of their animosity.

“Vain much Blakey?” Yang ignored the look of instant death that Blake sent her way.

“In which case” Blake continued “Right now you’re either going to try to seduce me or murder me. If you seduce me it’ll either be out of some twisted form of infatuation or as a form of one-upmanship. If you murder me it’ll either be a ploy for victory or as a love-raddled act of desperation”

“How ironic. So no matter what I do you won’t be able to discover my true motive?”

“You’re nothing if not cryptic Xiao Long” The supposed insult went across as a compliment if Yang’s smirk was anything to go by. 

“And what about if I just ditch you here and head back on my own? What’s the motivation there?” Her brazen yellow hair stood out in the near darkness, even as she struggled to shake her locks back into place.

“Probably some sort of overcompensation for parents that abandoned you to fend for yourselves in this trash dump of a city” Blake instantly noticed the shift in her mood. Before it had been playful, if mocking. Now it was scathing, back to the coal smoldering hate that had become customary in their exchanges. About time too, it had become a little too chummy for her taste. 

“My mom died asshole” Yang looked pissed too, gaze resplendent in brazen fury. 

“Shame” Blake shrugged as best she could, laying against the cold pavement. She turned her gaze up to the sky, mentally picturing where each constellation would be without the cloud of smog that signaled economic prosperity. “Point still stands” 

Her gaze burned craters in Blake’s head. Yea that comment had gone too far, but honestly who cared? Why apologize to someone who could never be anything more than an archenemy? Being nice was overrated. Apologizing was something Blake had one far too much of during her first twenty years of life and if hurting a vixen’s feelings was the price of not being saddled with the burden of niceness well then sign me the fuck up Blake thought. Not like Yang had ever pulled punches either. That was just how the two of them rolled and damn it if it wasn’t a perfectly good working system. 

“Too far Blake,” She whispered, venom lacing each trace of her tongue. “Take that back before I break that pretty little lip of yours” 

Who knows, maybe it had been a nascent crush that had pushed Yang to bring her up here. If so least Blake could do was remind her of who exactly she was. Blake wasn’t a good person. Good people get shat on by lady destiny and Blake had dealt with enough shit for ten lifetimes. 

“Whatever you say princess” Blake answered mockingly, thick honey sarcasm positively dripping from her lips. 

The word princess had only barely left Blake’s mouth before Yang’s tough muscled arms pinned her down, rage filled pupils staring down into her own. She had found Yang’s trigger, for better or for worse. No what was she talking about, for better of course. Knowledge was power after all, and to know your opponent’s weakness was half the war. 

“Take. It. Back” Yang hissed, nails digging into Blake’s thin arms even as Yang all but showed teeth. 

“Naah” Blake whispered nonchalantly, every muscle nevertheless tense as Yang held the smaller girl firmly pinned down. Both girls panted for breath under the tense showdown that had slipped over their previously calm if mysterious midnight rendezvous.

“There’s a reason your only friends are the ones you make up you know,” Nails dug into skin as if to emphasize the point “You’re kind of a cunt when it comes to other people actually” 

“Cunt's a misogynistic slur asswipe” Blake couldn’t resist. Did she feel bad about nearly insulting Yang’s dead mother? Eh, not really. But did she feel bad about lowering herself down to the other girls level with personal insults? Eh nope not at all. Insulting someone is surprisingly invigorating. 

“Oh shut the fuck up, you don’t give a flying shit about feminism or anyone other than yourself and your little pet stories” The nails tearing through outer layers of flesh were actually getting somewhat painful but hell if Blake was going to be the first to back down from this. She flashed a steak knife smile at the blond, daring her to hit, bite, something. 

“I’ll let you in on a little secret Virginia Woolf-Wanabee. You’re not nearly as special as you think you are”

“Wait, so I’m NOT one of the cool kids?” Blake couldn’t help the smirk splaying itself access her face (not that she would’ve stopped it if she could control it either). Pissed off Bitchy McBitchtits was a sight to behold.

“You’re lonely and pathetic”

“Aww thanks hun, appreciate it” The fist that swung at her fist was too fast too block, even if Blake had tried. She had already decided that nothing quite turned her on like a pissed off yang, and a broken nose was a small price to pay for this sort of entertainment. It wasn’t a broken nose however. Just a little bit north of the nose actually. The fist hit Blake’s left eye dead center, almost certainly leaving an impressive mark. Blake shook her head, trying to clear the daze that had planted stars where none were. She felt a weight lift off of her, and when she finally found the wherewithal to bring herself back to sitting position and gingerly open her eyelid, Yang was nowhere in sight. 

With a barely concealed grin Blake pulled out her phone and called an Uber to the nearest corner. Xiao Long might be a worthy opponent but ultimately there could only be one master. And that master would be Blake, cum hell or high water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes this rooftop is in fact an actual rooftop in chicago that I've been to multiple times, and yes it is in fact amazing.


End file.
